Science of Terra Nova British Antarctic Expedition

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The Terra Nove expedition took place between 1910 and 1913. It was led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott who died after making a last entry in his diary on March 29, 1912; his death along with the men in his party, overshadowed the scientific contributions at first.

The 12 scientists who participated—the largest Antarctic scientific team of its time—made important discoveries in zoology, botany, geology, glaciology, and meteorology. Volumes 4-8 of the Natural History Reports from the expedition were published between 1917 and 1924; they are my free eBooks selections for this week…freely available on Internet Archive.

 Natural History Reports / British Antarctic ("Terra Nova") Expedition, 1910-13 V4

Natural History Reports / British Antarctic ("Terra Nova") Expedition, 1910-13 V5

Natural History Reports / British Antarctic ("Terra Nova") Expedition, 1910-13 V6

Natural History Reports / British Antarctic ("Terra Nova") Expedition, 1910-13 V7

Natural History Reports / British Antarctic ("Terra Nova") Expedition, 1910-13 V8

Butterfly House Training

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My plan is to do a lot of volunteering to support the Roston Native Butterfly House during its May – September season. The training for new docents was this month – 1.5 hours on a Saturday morning. The training was held at the Springfield Botanical Center. I arrived a little early and took some pictures of plants near the entrance as I walked in. The spring bulbs are almost done…but there are a few that are still beautiful.

There will be an orientation in the butterfly house itself in the days before the opening to the public and new docents are paired with experienced ones as the season starts. There might be some additional volunteer roles helping with school tours to the butterfly house. I am confident that it will be a rewarding experience – maybe my volunteer gig for summers for the next several years at least.

The session was well organized with folders of information for everyone, a signup sheet to get t-shirts, and forms to fill out. Their goal was to have 60 volunteer docents to keep the butterfly house running smoothly. They had that many last year and hopefully the new volunteers, like me, will make up for any attrition.

There are similarities and differences between the volunteering I did in Maryland at Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy. I am relieved that the containment requirements at this butterfly house are much easier since the butterflies are all natives! As far as interacting with visitors, I am anticipating that it will be very similar and something I will enjoy.

Professional Tree Trimming

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My daughter has been talking about getting a professional assessment of the trees in her yard (some probably over 70 years old) since she bought the house about 5 years ago; the idea became urgent when she noticed some limbs of a redbud leaning on her roof near the electric lines. I was there when she walked around with the arborist to assess what needed to be done. Fortunately, the redbud was the most significant!

The southern magnolia only needed a few low branches near another part of the roof taked off; over the street the branches were high enough that they weren’t problematic for traffic on the side street.

The two Amur maples had some dead branches. The one near the garden room and over the driveway had been accidently poisoned last year by a vender treating weeds growing between bricks; fortunately, most of it has recovered this year. The first two pictures are from before…the last one from after.

The Amur maple in the back corner was a little too close to power lines so it was proactively trimmed to avoid becoming entangled.

The crabapple had some low branches but was evidently otherwise in good shape. It is a smaller and better shaped tree now.

The river birch had some branches that were hanging so low they were in the way. Now it is trimmed up. It self-prunes small branches frequently…something that the species does naturally.

The big job was the redbud. It was blooming but had some dead branches…and there was a split in the main trunk. The assessment was that it could not be saved. It came down in pieces.

They cut 10 large tree cookies from one of the large branches!

I photographed the stump first shortly after it was cut. Since the center had rotted…we were not going to be able to determine the age of the tree.

I swept it off to try to count the rings that were still intact, and it was still not an easy task. The outer part of the stump is convoluted. I wondered if this is normal for older redbud trunks.

My daughter and I are going to plant some spice bush around the redbud stump. It won’t get tall enough to interfere with the electrical lines….but fill in the blank space at ground level left by the older tree.

The tree trimmers left us wood chips….more about what I am doing with them in a post next week!

Geology Course Experiences – April 2025

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Over the past month, the online geology course has moved along slowly with only another 2 chapters covering waste management/landfills and landslides. There was a week-long pause for Spring Break. I am glad I chose this version of the geology class (It’s titled ‘Earth: The Survival Guide’) since it provides a background for items in the news that have a geologic component. The syllabus for the next few weeks shows a significant uptick in topics with 4 chapters before the last exam on May 1. It seems like the course pacing is dramatically skewed toward the end.

I was disappointed that the scheduled field trip day was canceled because of weather (rain the previous days and the scheduled day, flash flooding and river flooding). Evidently there is not going to be another attempt. I’ll have to make do with my own observations as I travel around the state…and the geology field trip with Missouri Master Naturalists that is scheduled for early May; hopefully the weather will be better for that one.

The labs were also impacted by spring break. Topics were:

  • Groundwater contamination investigation that involved samples to be tested for nitrates, total dissolved solids, pH, and salinity…then pinpointing where contamination was coming from using a contour map of industries and where the samples were collected.

  • Streams and rivers using topographic maps to observe how river move along the surface and the observable structures from the interactions between water and the surface (things like natural levees and oxbow lakes).

  • Geologic maps – looking at the geographic distribution of rock units exposed at the Earth’s surface. Maps of Webster County MO, Bright Angel Quandrangle, AZ (part of the Grand Canyon), and the Williamsville Quadrangle, VA (part of the Appalachian Mountains).

The ‘streams and rivers’ lab was not on the original syllabus and there has not been an update showing which of the labs will be dropped. I hope the ones on Caves/Karst and Shorelines will still be part of the semester.

I am anticipating a flurry of activity between now and the end of the semester! There are a lot of textbook chapters in the syllabus that we haven’t done yet.